Village at Market Creek gets LEED-Silver

Village at Market Creek includes the Market Creek Plaza retail center and Vi and Joe Jacobs Community Center. Future plans call for residential, commercial and industrial development and preservation along Chollas Creek.
— Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation

Village at Market Creek includes the Market Creek Plaza retail center and Vi and Joe Jacobs Community Center. Future plans call for residential, commercial and industrial development and preservation along Chollas Creek.
/ Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation

The Village at Market Creek in Southeastern San Diego’s Lincoln Park area has received LEED-Silver designation from the U.S. Green Building Council for neighborhood development, only the third such project to be recognized.

The 90-acre development, expected to be completed over the next 20 years, was cited for its walkability and transit connections, energy savings concepts and environmentally sustainable practices.

“It is my sincere hope that this project serves as a model for sustainable design in communities across the country,” said Scot Horst, senior vice president of LEED at the council.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and offers a certification process to communities and developers. The neighborhood development designation is the latest category to be offered and is available to planned projects, whereas LEED certifications generally apply to completed buildings.

The two previous recipients were Sunnydale, a 50-acre public housing redevelopment project in San Francisco awarded last year and OneC1TY, an 18.7-acre mixed-use project planned in Nashville, Tenn., according to Ted Bardacke at Global Green USA, a consultant on the Village and Sunnydale plans.

Earlier, during the pilot phase of the LEED-Neighborhood Development program, Sudberry Properties’ Civita project in Mission Valley, formerly known as Quarry Falls, received a LEED-Gold designation.

Projects receive platinum, gold, silver and basic designations based on a 100-point scale. The Village project received 56 points in four categories, according to Michael Singleton of KTU+A, the landscape architecture firm that worked on various aspects of the master plan.

“It’s a really good trend to look at these things comprehensively,” Singleton said, since sustainable development entails more than just a building but also its setting and connections to its neighbors.

The Village at Market Creek at Euclid Avenue and Market Street is a development of the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, a nonprofit foundation established the late Joseph Jacobs, founder of Jacobs Engineering Group. He is not related to Qualcomm cofounder Irwin Jacobs.

Charles Davis, project development director at the Jacobs Center, said the foundation spent about $90,000 to achieve LEED designation and produce planning documents to attract investors, guide developers and apply for grants. The foundation owns 54 acres of the master-planned area and hopes to eventually build 1,000 housing units and 515,000 square feet in retail, office and industrial development. More than 9 acres of open space in and around Chollas Creek are planned for preservation.

So far, the property has been developed with the Plaza at Market Creek retail center and the Vi and Joe Jacobs Community Center.